Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief(67)
It must have been galling for her to negotiate with Miscavige, who was twenty-one at the time—the age Mary Sue was when she married Hubbard. Privately, she called him “Little Napoleon.” In exchange for her resignation from the GO, the Messengers offered a house and a financial settlement. Mary Sue had substantial legal bills and no other means of support. Under the guise of having to sort out the messes that would be left behind in the wake of her resignation, Miscavige went over a number of different subjects, even including a couple of murders that were alleged to have been committed by a member of the GO office in London. He wanted Mary Sue on tape, confessing to other crimes, which could then be fed to the government. This was done, Bill Franks asserts, with Hubbard’s knowledge: “Hubbard wanted her out of the way. He wanted all guns pointed at her so he could go about his old age without worrying about being thrown in jail.”
Mary Sue lost her last appeal. She began serving a five-year sentence in Lexington, Kentucky, in January 1983. Hubbard never visited her in prison. Her letters went unanswered. “I don’t believe he’s getting them,” she later reasoned. Mary Sue was released after serving one year. She never saw her husband again.
MANY PEOPLE WHO JOINED the church under Hubbard would later contend that Miscavige’s machinations were opposed to the will of the founder. But there is evidence that Miscavige was acting on Hubbard’s direct orders. Jesse Prince says that when Hubbard was angry at someone he would command Miscavige to hit or spit on them, then report back when he had done so. Larry Brennan, who was a member of the church’s Watchdog Committee in charge of dealing with legal affairs, had seen how a minor infraction could be inflated into a major offense that justified the most severe penalty. There were no mistakes; there were only crimes. Every action was intended. This logic brooked no defense.
Once a week, after Hubbard disappeared, Brennan had to drive ninety miles southeast of Los Angeles to the little town of Hemet in order to write up confidential reports to be sent to the missing leader. The church operated a secret base there in a former resort known as Gilman Hot Springs. Two Sea Org bases are located on the old Gilman resort, Gold and Int. Gold Base is named after Golden Era Productions, the lavishly equipped film and recording studio set up by Hubbard to make his movies and produce Scientology materials. Int. Base is the church’s international headquarters. On the north side of the highway, nestled against the dry hills, is Bonnie View, the house that Hubbard hoped one day to live in. Miscavige keeps an office on the property. Few Scientologists, and almost no one outside of the church, knew of its existence. The local community was told that the bankrupt property on California Highway 79 had been purchased in 1978 by the “Scottish Highland Quietude Club.” Most of the Sea Org members on the base had no idea where they were; they had been transported there overnight from the former base at La Quinta in a deliberately circuitous route.
Gold Base was the only place deemed secure enough for Brennan to send his dispatches. Brennan says that in late 1982 he witnessed Miscavige abusing three Scientology executives who had made some small error. The three offenders were lined up before their leader. According to Brennan, he punched the first one in the mouth. The next he slapped hard in the face. He choked the third executive so hard that Brennan thought the man would black out. No explanation was offered. This came at a time when Hubbard was furious that his legal situation left him in limbo, and he was upset about the church’s finances. Brennan had access to all the correspondence coming from Hubbard to the Watchdog Committee, and he knew that Hubbard was demanding action. “He wanted a head on a pike,” Brennan said.
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Gold Base, the Scientology compound in Gilman Hot Springs, California. It includes Bonnie View (center rear), awaiting Hubbard’s anticipated return from other realms; the management building (to its right), which houses David Miscavige’s offices; and staff apartments (right front).
Brennan says that after the beating, the three executives were held as prisoners on the base.3 They were assigned lowly tasks and Sea Org members spat on them whenever they passed. Later, one of the three men approached Brennan, in tears, worried about what might happen to him. “He had to have great courage just to speak to me, because they were not allowed to speak unless spoken to,” Brennan recalled. “I had Hubbard’s orders in my hand to spit on him. I couldn’t do it.”
In December 1982, David Miscavige married Michele “Shelly” Barnett, a slight blonde, twenty-one years old. She had been one of the early Commodore’s Messengers on the Apollo. She was quiet, petite, and younger than most of the other Messengers at the time—about twelve when she joined—and a bit overshadowed by the older girls. “She was a sweet, innocent thing thrown into chaos,” one of her shipmates recalled.
John Brousseau was married to Shelly’s older sister, Clarisse, and one day he proposed that the two couples go fishing. Miscavige had never been. They drove up to Lake Hemet, a glacial lake in the mountains above Gold Base. It was a beautiful spring day, the sun was glinting off the water, a mild breeze was blowing, the wildflowers were out, and birds were singing. Everyone was dressed in shorts or jeans. They had brought sandwiches and sodas for a picnic.
Brousseau baited the poles with salmon eggs, and then showed the others how to cast. He said to just let the line sink to the bottom and then sit back and wait. Maybe a trout would take a bite.
Brousseau recalls looking over at Miscavige five minutes later. He was visibly shaking, his veins were bulging. “You got to be kidding me!” he said. “This is it? You just sit here and f*cking wait?”